


A New Song

by there_must_be_a_lock



Series: The Rockstar AU [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Background Harry Styles/Sam Winchester, Dean's Inner Angry Rainbow, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Pining, Ridiculous Crack Pairing!, Rockstar AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:47:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26098129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/there_must_be_a_lock/pseuds/there_must_be_a_lock
Summary: In which Dean needs relationship advice, Harry eats a banana, and they talk about the giant rainbow elephant in the room.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: The Rockstar AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1852567
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	A New Song

Dean frowns down at his notebook, scratching out a couple words and humming the line to himself again. Rhyming “wait” with “too late” seems about as elegant as a fuckin’ anvil. He can do better.

It’s hard to say these lyrics out loud, even here in the privacy of his own living room. He can’t imagine working up the courage to sing them in front of other people. 

One other person in particular.

He picks up his acoustic and strums the chorus again before rewriting “too late.” He fronts a rock band, for fuck’s sake, he’s not going out for the Pulitzer in poetry. If Sammy ever gets his lazy ass out of bed, maybe he can help. He’s basically a walking Thesaurus. 

Dean takes a deep breath before singing it quietly: “ _It’s always been you, but I couldn’t ask you to wait, so the moment wasn’t right, and I think I’m too late.”_

He sighs and puts down the guitar again, picking up the pen and twirling it between his fingers. 

“S’nice,” he hears. 

“Fuck,” Dean exclaims, and jumps about a foot. 

When he turns around, it’s Harry, of course, leaning against the doorframe with a half-eaten banana in his hand, smirking. 

He asks innocently, “Sorry, did I startle you?”

Dean picks up his coffee mug with one hand and shoots him the bird with the other. “Eat a dick, X Factor.” 

Harry raises his eyebrows and then eats the rest of the banana in one obscenely large bite, which… yeah, okay, Dean deserved that. 

Harry sits in the armchair opposite Dean, chewing slowly, with a pensive look on his face. 

“Has Cas heard it?” he asks eventually. 

Dean almost spits out his sip of coffee, but recovers quickly. “No. It’s not done yet, I’ll play it for the rest of the band when there’s actually something to hear. Probably won’t finish it, anyway. Been working on it for a long time, still don’t know how it should go.” 

“Does Cas… know?” Harry asks, lazy and blank-faced. It’s the demeanor he adopts when there’s a camera aimed in his direction and the interviewer has asked a particularly pointless question. 

Dean scowls. Harry just waits, impassive. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” Dean mutters, a few seconds too late to be plausible. 

“Well,” Harry says, and there’s an interminable pause before he continues at a glacial pace: “It’s... about Cas, isn’t it? The song.” 

“No,” Dean snaps reflexively. 

Harry blinks at him a couple times. 

“Don’t give me the fuckin’ cow eyes, Timberlake,” Dean grumbles. “Save it for Tiger Beat.” 

Harry gives him a sympathetic smile, one of the ones that’s practically impossible to mistrust. He’s so goddamn likeable sometimes. Dean really wants to hate him for it. 

Dean opens his mouth and shuts it again, then takes a drink of coffee. He clears his throat uncomfortably. 

“Can’t you take a fuckin’ hint?” he says, but there’s no bite in his voice. 

“How long, then, mate?” Harry asks, half-laughing.

Dean sighs and hides his face in his hands. “As long as I’ve known him.” 

“And… does he know?” 

“It’s complicated,” Dean mumbles. 

“Shocking,” Harry says lightly.

“We almost got together, a few years ago,” Dean admits, frowning down at his own hands and picking at a hangnail. 

“What happened?” 

Dean shrugs, trying to hide the bitter edge in his voice. “I was a fuckin’ mess. Drinking too much. Scared shitless, too. So I pushed him away before it could get real. Before I could fuck it up.” 

“And?” 

“He almost quit the band,” Dean says hoarsely. “But he stayed. I think he was waiting, for a while.” He hasn’t said it out loud before, not in so many words. He can’t meet Harry’s eyes. 

“For what?” 

“For me to get my shit together, I guess. And… the right moment, maybe.” 

Dean thinks back to the times they not-quite-talked about it, the way he’d mumbled about it in vague terms, cushioned safely in generalities: “Maybe when I’m better, but I can’t have a healthy relationship right now,” before he sobered up. Then, “Maybe when the band is a little more established, when things aren’t so fragile… when things aren’t so crazy, when we’re not touring so much… maybe then I’ll settle down.” 

Harry’s expression is completely neutral, non-judgemental. “And you’re afraid to come out,” he says. It’s not a question. 

“Charlie’s always been out, it’s not like -” 

Harry cuts him off quietly: “That’s not it.” 

Dean knuckles at his eyes and huffs out a breath. He really didn’t want to talk about the big fuckin’ rainbow elephant in the room. 

Harry’s been dodging questions about his sexuality for so long he acts like it’s a sport. He and Sam could win Olympic gold in doubles’ Evading Labels. Still, the media is going to catch on one of these days. 

“It’d be different if it was all of us,” Dean says reluctantly. “I don’t want to spend every fuckin’ interview talking about where we each fall on the fuckin’ Kinsey scale, alright?” 

“So _don’t_ ,” Harry drawls, with a careless shrug. “If the music is good, it shouldn’t matter.” 

“Easy for you to say,” Dean says sharply. “Have you ever made a record that _didn’t_ go platinum?” 

Harry’s expression goes cold and unreadable for a moment. Then his gaze falls, and he’s silent for a moment, picking at a chip in his bright green nail polish. He looks exhausted, suddenly, and Dean’s reminded of how much of his life this kid has spent carrying the burden of other peoples’ expectations. 

“It’s not,” Harry says, voice barely more than a whisper. “Never has been. Easy, I mean.” 

“Shit,” Dean mutters, by way of an apology. 

Harry shrugs. “Not the point, though. Nothing’s easy. No such thing as the right moment for falling in love.” 

Dean takes a sip of his coffee, trying to think of something flippant to say. It’s too fuckin’ early for this kind of honesty. 

All he can manage is, “You guys seem happy, though.” 

When Harry smiles, really smiles, it’s like kittens and sunshine and goddamn ice cream sundaes radiate out of his face, the annoying little fucker, and Dean can’t help but smile back. 

“When you… find the right person?” There’s a dreamy pause. “Worth it. Even the scary bits. And... ” 

“Sometimes I want to just grab you by the shoulders and shake you, to see if that makes the words happen faster,” Dean says bitchily, but he’s still smiling. 

“It doesn’t,” Sam interjects from the doorway, mid-yawn. 

Harry stands up, wrapping himself around Sam and headbutting him affectionately in the chest. Dean would swear he’s part cat; Sam, who’s used to it, just pets him idly and yawns again. 

“And? Are you going to finish that sentence sometime this year?” Dean asks. 

“Mm, yeah. I was saying…” His voice is muffled in Sam’s shirt. “You think you don’t deserve it. Happiness. This kind of happiness.” He looks up at Sam and beams. “But you do. Everybody does.” 

“Wait, what’d I miss?” Sam asks sleepily. 

“Dean’s going to tell Cas how he feels,” Harry informs him. “And I’m going to make more coffee.” Without waiting for a response, he untangles himself and heads for the kitchen. 

“I mean, I don’t - it’s not like - well, maybe,” Dean mumbles, his stomach swooping and swerving sickeningly like he’s on a roller-coaster. “Just… you think?” 

“He’s right, you know. You think you don’t deserve it, but… ” Sam pinches the spot between his eyes, shaking his head slightly. “Think maybe it runs in the family. I didn’t think I did, either. Still can’t believe it.” 

It’s true; Sam still walks around with this perplexed, surprised smile, sometimes, like he’s waiting to wake up, even though it’s been almost a year. 

“What if I fuck up?” Dean asks. His voice cracks embarrassingly. 

Sam gives him a tired smile. “You’ve fucked up before. Cas loves you anyway. Always has.” 

Dean feels like somebody just whacked him over the head with a two-by-four. He stands up on shaky legs and grabs his guitar. 

“Now?” Sam asks, eyebrows raised. “Where are you…” 

“You’re right,” Dean says determinedly. “Been waiting long enough. I’ve got a song to finish.” 


End file.
